Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz hit his first triple of the season Sunday in Boston’s 5-0 victory over the Blue Jays, driving a Shaun Marcum pitch into the tricky left-center field gap at Fenway Park.

The annual Big Papi triple has become a sort of tradition for Red Sox fans and the beat writers who cover them. He has managed at least one three-bagger per season since 2000, when he was a member of the Twins.

No matter what you might think about “Red Sox Nation” and Big Papi as a personality, it’s always pretty great to see those big legs trucking around the basepaths.

As Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal points out, Ortiz is one of only three American League players to have a triple in each of the last 11 seasons and the Red Sox have won eight of the 10 games in which he has accomplished the feat.

Ortiz is batting .267 with a healthy .919 OPS, 27 homers, 27 doubles and 79 RBI over 393 at-bats this season. Sunday’s single and triple raised his slugging percentage a whole five points, from .542 to .547.

The Red Sox are 6.5 games back of the Yankees in the American League East and 5.5 games behind the Rays in the hunt for the AL’s Wild Card.

The Oakland Athletics ballpark saga has dragged on for years and years and years. They’ve considered San Jose, Fremont and at least three locations in Oakland as potential new ballpark sites. The whole process has lasted almost as long as the Braves and Rangers played in their old parks before building new ones.

In the past several months the Athletics’ “stay in Oakland” plan has gained momentum. At one point the club thought it had an agreement to build a new place near Peralta/Laney College in downtown Oakland. There have been hiccups with that, so two other sites — Howard Terminal, favored by city officials — and the current Oakland Coliseum site have remained in play. There are pros and cons to each of these sites, as we have discussed in the past.

One consideration not mentioned before was mentioned by team president David Kaval yesterday: sea level rise due to climate change. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Kaval mentioned twice that the Howard Terminal site would have to take into account sea-level rise and transportation concerns — and he said there have been conversations with the city and county and the Joint Powers Authority about developing the Coliseum site.

The Howard Terminal/Jack London Square area of Oakland has been identified as susceptible to dramatically increased flooding as a result of projected sea level rise due to climate change. On the other side of the bay both the San Francisco Giants and Golden State Warriors have had to consider sea level rise in their stadium/arena development plans. Now it’s the Athletics’ turn.

Fifteen of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams play in coastal areas and another five of them play near the Great Lakes. While some of our politicians don’t seem terribly concerned about it all, people and organizations who will have skin the game 10, 20 and 50 years from now, like the Oakland Athletics, are taking it into account.